The Present Miserable State of Ireland. In a Letter from a Gentleman in Dublin, to his Friend S. R. W. in London: Wherein is briefly stated the Causes and Heads of all our Woes. Dublin: Printed, &c.

[The following Tract is taken from a little miscellaneous 12mo volume of pamphlets, communicated by Mr Hartstonge, relating chiefly to Irish affairs, the property at one time of Thomas Kingsbury, Esq. son of Dr Kingsbury, who attended Swift in his last illness. The letter has neither date nor publisher's name. We are to understand that it was addressed to Sir Robert Walpole; and besides Swift's initials, subjoined to the letter, there is subjoined to the Dublin copy a half length of the Dean in his clerical dress, coarsely cut upon wood, but bearing a striking resemblance to his other portraits. There appears no reason to doubt the authenticity of the treatise, which serves as one piece of evidence, among many others, that Swift, during the short period when there was an opening for friendly intercourse betwixt him and Walpole, availed himself of it, rather to state the grievances of Ireland than to serve his own purposes of advancement. This letter contains the summary of the conference between Swift and the prime minister in April 1726, and of the letter which the Dean wrote to the Earl of Peterborow upon the same occasion. See pages 318, 319. As the representation is couched in an amicable form, the publication must have taken place betwixt Swift's return to Ireland in July 1726, and his final rupture with Walpole on his coming to England in March 1727. Sir Robert Walpole, though in many respects an able and enlightened statesman, certainly entertained the prejudices generally current in England on the mode of managing Ireland. If the Dean had only been solicitous of personal aggrandizement, it might have been readily obtained; but the minister did not choose to gain his adherence at the expence of sacrificing the system which had hitherto guided England in her conduct towards the sister kingdom, and the patriot of Ireland was not to be won at a cheaper rate than the emancipation of his country. The character of the Drapier seems to be assumed by the letter-writer.]

SIR,-By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you should apply to a person so ill qualified as I am, for a full and impartial account of the state of

our trade. I have always lived as retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of city-offices; I have never minded any body's business but my own; upon all which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found among my fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty questions you put to me, than I can pretend to be.

But being entirely at leisure, even at this season of the year, when I used to have scarce time sufficient to perform the necessary offices of life, I will endeavour to comply with your requests, cautioning you not implicitly to rely upon what 1 say, excepting what belongs to that branch of trade in which I am more immediately concerned.

The Irish trade is, at present, in the most deplorable condition that can be imagined; to remedy it, the causes of its languishment must be inquired into: But as those causes (you may assure yourself) will not be removed, you may look upon it as a thing past hopes of recovery.

The first and greatest shock our trade received, was from an act passed in the reign of King William, in the parliament of England, prohibiting the exportation of wool manufactured in Ireland. An act (as the event plainly shews) fuller of greediness than good policy; an act as beneficial to France and Spain, as it has been destructive to England and Ireland. At the passing of this fatal act, the condition of our trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with the English; we made no broad-cloths above 6s. per yard; coarse druggets, bays and shalloons, worsted damasks, strong draught works, slight half-works, and gaudy stuffs, were the only product of our looms: these were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly sent to the northern nations, from which we had in exchange, timber, iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars. At the time the current money of Ireland was foreign silver, a man could hardly receive L. 100, without finding the coin of all the northern powers, and every Prince of the empire among it. This money was returned into England for fine clothes, silks, &c. for our own wear, for rents, for coals, for hardware, and all other English manufactures, and, in a great measure, supplied the London merchants with foreign silver for exporta

tion.

The repeated clamours of the English weavers produced this act, so destructive to themselves and us. They looked with envious eyes upon our prosperity, and complained of being under-sold by us in those commodities, which they themselves did not deal in. At their instances the act was passed, and we lost our profitable northern trade. Have they got it? No, surely, you have found they have ever since declined in the trade they so happily possessed; you shall find (if I am rightly informed) towns without one loom in them, which subsisted entirely upon the woollen manufactory before the passing of this unhappy bill; and I will try if I can give the true reasons for the decay of their trade, and our calamities.

Three parts in four of the inhabitants of that district of the town where I dwell were English manufacturers, whom either misfortunes in trade, little petty debts, contracted through idleness, or the pressures of a numerous family, had driven into our cheap country: These were employed in working up our coarse wool, while the finest was sent into England. Several of these had taken the children of the native Irish apprentices to them, who being humbled by the forfeiture of upward of three millions by the Revolution, were obliged to stoop to a mechanic industry. Upon the passing of this bill, we were obliged to dismiss thousands of these people from our service. Those who had settled their affairs returned home, and overstocked England with workmen; those whose debts were unsatisfied went to France, Spain, and Netherlands, where they met with good encouragement, whereby the natives, having got a firm footing in the trade, being acute fellows, soon became as good workmen as any we have, and supply the foreign manufactories with a constant recruit of artizans; our island lying much more under pasture than any in Europe. The foreigners (notwithstanding all the restrictions the English parliament has bound us up with) are furnished with the greatest quantity of our choicest wool. I need not tell you, sir, that a custom-house oath is held as little sacred here as in England, or that it is common for masters of vessels to swear themselves bound for one of the English wool ports, and unload in France or Spain. By this means the trade in those parts is, in a great measure, destroyed, and we were

obliged to try our hands at finer works, having only our home consumption to depend upon; and, I can assure you, we have, in several kinds of narrow goods, even exceeded the English, and I believe we shall, in a few years more, be able to equal them in broad cloths; but this you may depend upon, that scarce the tenth part of English goods are now imported, of what used to be before the famous act.

The only manufactured wares we are allowed to export, are linen cloth and linen yarn, which are marketable only in England; the rest of our commodities are wool, restrained to England, and raw hides, skins, tallow, beef, and butter. Now, these are things for which the northern nations have no occasion; we are therefore obliged, instead of carrying woollen goods to their markets, and bringing home money, to purchase their commodities.

In France, Spain, and Portugal, our wares are more valuable, though it must be owned, our fraudulent trade in wool is the best branch of our commerce; from hence we get wines, brandy, and fruit, very cheap, and in great perfection; so that though England has constrained us to be poor, they have given us leave to be merry. From these countries we bring home moydores, pistoles, and louisdores, without which we should scarce have a penny to turn upon.

To England we are allowed to send nothing but linen cloth, yarn, raw hides, skins, tallow, and wool. From thence we have coals, for which we always pay ready money, India goods, English woollen and silks, tobacco, hard-ware earthen-ware, salt, and several other commodities. Our exportations to England are very much overbalanced by our importations; so that the course of exchange is generally too high, and people chuse rather to make their remittances to England in specie, than by a bill, and our nation is perpetually drained of its little running cash.

Another cause of the decay of trade, scarcity of money and swelling of Exchange, is the unnatural affectation of our gentry to reside in and about London. Their rents are remitted to them, and spent there; the countryman wants employment from them, the country shop-keeper wants their custom; for this reason he can't pay his Dublin correspondent readily, nor take off a great quantity of his wares. Therefore the Dublin merchant can't employ the artizan,

nor keep up his credit in foreign markets. I have discoursed some of these gentlemen, persons esteemed for good sense, and demanded a reason for this their so unaccountable proceeding, expensive to them for the present! ruinous to their country and destructive to the future value of their estates! and find all their answers summed up under three heads; curiosity, pleasure, and loyalty to King George. The two first excuses deserve no answer; let us try the validity of the third. Would not loyalty be much better expressed by gentlemen staying in their respective countries, influencing their dependents by their examples, saving their own wealth, and letting their neighbours profit by their necessary expences, thereby keeping them from misery and its unavoidable consequence, discontent? Or is it better to flock to London, be lost in a crowd, kiss the king's hand, and take a view of the royal family? The seeing of the royal house may animate their zeal for it; but other advantages I know not. What employment have any of our gentlemen got by their attendance at Court to make up to them their expences? Why, about forty of them have been created peers, and a little less than a hundred of them, baronets and knights. For these excellent advantages, thousands of our gentry have squeezed their tenants, impoverished the trader, and impaired their own fortunes!

Another great calamity, is the exorbitant raising of the rents of lands. Upon the determination of all leases made before the year 1690, a gentleman thinks he has but indifferently improved his estate, if he has only doubled his rentroli. Farms are screwed up to a rack-rent, leases granted but for a small term of years, tenants tied down to hard conditions, and discouraged from cultivating the lands they occupy, to the best advantage, by the certainty they have of the rent being raised on the expiration of their lease, proportionably to the improvements they shall make. Thus is honest industry restrained, the farmer is a slave to his landlord; 'tis well if he can cover his family with a coarse home-spun frize. The artizan has little dealings with him, yet he is obliged to take his provisions from him at an extravagant price, otherwise the farmer cannot pay his rent.

The proprietors of lands keep great part of them in their own hands for sheep pasture, and there are thousands of